Black Cat Waltz
by ClubsxDeuce
Summary: The cat came back. This time it's the clown's turn fur some bad luck... KatNep, but not in the way you'd expect.
1. Chapter 1

She crept along the corridors of the ruined hive near the oceanside. She knew that he had gathered most of the spoils from his conquest and hid them away here. She had already seen several more gruesome spoils... disfigured and dismantled bodies of trolls, most of which she knew. She would have been overwhelmed with grief and sorrow at the sight... she could still feel herself about to cry as she tried to stifle it. No. You're not doing that anymore. She told herself as she pressed on in search of her objective. If she could just find it... maybe things would be better again. Like they were before. She found her prize in a room painted with rust colored blood. A skeleton was crumpled up in the corner. She averted her eyes, and reached out for the once gleaming devices on the table, and took them in her arms. She had ever used them before... but she knew she had to try. "I'm coming..." A tear rolled down her grey cheek. "Karkitty..."

"What is he the mayor of anyway?" questioned Dave to no one in particular, as they watched the newly healed Mayor sleeping. "It kinda looks like he just made that sash himself.

"HE'S THE DULY ELECTED MAYOR OF THE FRUITY RUMPUS ASSHOLE FACTORY, AND HE JUST CUT THE RIBBON TO A BRAND NEW MUSEUM FULL OF PRICELESS SHUT THE FUCK UP." The grey skinned boy standing next to him replied tersly.

"He's actually kinda adorable, don't you think?" Dave asked Karkat.

"IS THAT YOUR HUMAN IRONY MUSCLEBEAST SHIT AGAIN?"

"Um..." Dave hesitated. "Yeah, let's go with that."

"BESIDES, HE JUST LOOKS LIKE A PAWN. WE'VE BOTH SEEN TONS OF THEM AND THEY'RE NOTHING SPECIAL."

"Well yeah, but none of them were wearing badges of office forged from a mayo label."

"WHICH REMINDS ME, THE FUCK IS MAYO?" Dave shuddered and shook. "THE FUCK WAS THAT STRIDER?"

"I just got the willies or something." Dave shook his head. "Like a million twelve years old cried out in rage, and we're suddenly silenced by an xbox live ban." Karkat just looked at him funny for a moment.

"WHAT."

"Goddamn do I wish this hunk of rock got Netflix." Dave sighed. While he'd recovered with a witty joke that he knew would go over Karkat's head, and he truly had felt something just then. Since reaching the god tier, he'd been more in tune with his element... he could sense divergences in the time line... could guess with a reasonable certainty what actions would result in a doomed time line, and sense the arrival and departure of other time travelers. He hadn't really talked to anyone about it... he didn't figure anyone but a time player would really "get it". Anyways, this didn't feel like a doomed timeline. And he sincrely doubted anything he or Karkat were doing at the moment would spin them off into one. Of course, he had no clue what the rest of them were doing at that moment. He returned to the topic of movies. "Got any movies in this place?" Karkat sighed with dismay.

"NOPE. MAYBE I COULD HAVE RETRIEVED MY COLLECTION IF WE HADN'T IMMEDIATELY BEEN BANISHED FROM OUR UNIVERSE. OH GOD, I JUST REALIZED THAT YOU HUMANS HAVE SINGLED HANDEDLY WIPED TROLL CINEMA OUT OF HISTORY. I'LL ADD IT TO THE PILE OF "OH GOD I FUCKED UP" YOU'LL ALL HAVE TO RECKON FOR ONE DAY."

"Cat?" Dave replied.

"THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN-"

"KARKITTY!" A new voice shouted, waking the mayor from his slumber as he flailed about in panic. At the same time, Karkat found himself pounce-tackled to the floor by the troll who had run into the room on all fours like a wildcat, and now held him to the floor in a bear hug.

"NE-NEPETA!" Karkat was shocked. "HOW THE? WHAT THE? WHEN DID?" There were too many questions rushing him for him to form a cogent sentence. But he quickly realized that she was not going to be paying the least bit of attention to what he was saying. Tears dripped from her eyes onto his face.

"You're ok!" She cried out. "AC is so happy you're OK!" As she squeezed her hug tighter. Karkat gasped for breath. He'd been tackle-pounced and hugged by Nepeta before this, but not nearly this strongly. Sadness and joy were mixed in her eyes as Karkat noticed some differences about her. Her signature blue hat was nowhere to be found, and she now wore pair of goggles over her fore head. Her hair had grown out slightly, and was longer than he remembered. Instead of the signature olive jacket, she was wearing a black one, with the left arm torn off, revealing one of Equius' metal prosthetics in place of her left arm. Finally, she wore a white t-shirt with a black Leo-symbol, an outfit Karkat had never seen her in before.

"BUT BUT BUT..." Karkat stuttered. "YOU DIED! HOW ARE YOU HERE!?"

"AC's dead here?" She raised an eyebrow. "That makes things simpler."

"Hey yo. Troll boys and girls." Dave got their attention. "What's going on here?"

"Who are you?" Nepeta demanded, seemingly noticing Dave for the first time. She leapt up from Karkat and took a defensive stance between Dave and him. "What are you?" She remarked a second later with wider eyes.

"HE'S ONE OF THOSE STUPID HUMANS, REMEMBER?" Karkat told her. "HE'S NOT GONNA HURT US, CALM DOWN."

"Humans?" Nepeta glanced back at him and asked.

"YEAH, REMEMBER? TEREZI FOUND THEM AND THEN YOU ROLEPLAYED WITH A FEW OF THEM?" Nepeta returned a blank look.

"OH!" Dave exclaimed. "The roleplay troll with the cat fetish! I remember you. I was playing Arqueet Purrmusk, remember?" Nepeta returned a confused stare, but then got a good look at Dave's god tier robe, with the crimson gear of time emblazoned upon it.

"AC doesn't remember, because it must have never happened fur me." She told them as she finally untensed herself. "You're a time player, right?"

"Knight of." Dave answered.

"OK." She reached for her sylladex. "AC supposes she should probably tell you then. It's what she would have done." From the sylladex, a pair of glass music boxes on floating platforms appeared at her sides. Aradia's music box time machines, covered with an array of colorful blood. Dave suddenly understood everything.

"WAIT." Karkat interrupted. "YOU'RE FROM..."

"My name is Nepeta Leijon." She held her mechanical left arm in front of her, and made a fist with an intense look on her face. Three thin, shining claws shot out of the knuckles of the hand. "I'm here for the head of Gamzee Makara."


	2. Chapter 2

Weeks in the past... but not many...

":33 Wait up Karkitty!"

"WILL YOU STOP CALLING ME THAT?" Karkat demanded as he trudged up the slope on the Land of Pulse and Haze, making his way towards the next checkpoint of his quest. About twenty feet behind him, Nepeta came dashing up, bounding on all fours, using her claw gloves to gain traction on the steep hill. "AND THE WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME AROUND ANYWAY? DON'T YOU HAVE YOUR OWN QUEST? OR PLANS TO HANG OUT WITH THAT SWEATY ASSHOLE?"

":33 AC thinks our quests will be easier and more fun if we work together!" She responded cheerfully, passing ahead of Karkat.

"I CAN DO IT BY MYSELF THANKS. NOT MUCH FUCKING POINT IF I DON'T." Karkat told her. Nepeta gave him a frustrated look.

"But this whole game is about working together..."

"YEAH, AND YOU'RE ON THE OTHER TEAM! EVEN THOUGH THE TEAMS DON'T ACTUALLY MEAN ANYTHING AND WERE ACTUALLY A LOAD OF RANCID SLIME FROM THE START." Karkat was interrupted by a trollian alert on his handset. He glanced at and then shrugged with a disgusted look on his face. He sat down on the slope for a moment and started typing a reply, as Nepeta sat down next to him. Nepeta couldn't quite read the message, but was able to make out sea-dweller purple on his screen. "NO. YOU. SICK. FUCK" Karkat said aloud as he typed. "I DON'T WANT TO HUNTS ANGELS WITH YOU. STOP THAT. FOR THE FIFTIETH FUCKING TIME, I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOU, IN ANY QUADRANT KNOWN TO TROLLKIND, NOR ANY OTHER FORM OF ROMANCE OF ANY OTHER SPECIES THAT COULD POSSIBLY EXIST."

"He's still asking you? He's very purrsistent."

"I DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE GUY. WHY WON'T HE TAKE A FUCKING HINT?"

"I think it's sweet. :33"

"HA, I DOUBT YOU'D FEEL THE SAME WAY IF HE WAS HITTING ON YOU."

"He's just trying to find people to make him happy." Nepeta leaned on him. "You know, like in your movies. Filling your quadrants isn't just about not getting culled... it... completes you." Nepeta had switched the topic to romantic movies, which she knew was Karkat's soft spot. She could usually derail any angry rant or conversation by bringing it up.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER. EVEN IF WE EVER GET OUT OF THIS GAME WHAT'S THE POINT?" Karkat looked downtrodden.

"That's what I just said silly!" Nepeta giggled. "None of us have to worry about being culled anymore... so we can just do what makes us happy. Even if, it's only fur a little while..." Nepeta looked up into space above them towards the distant Skaia. Their future was highly uncertain... neither of them knew that a successful session would allow them to forge a new universe.

"WHAT MAKES US HAPPY HUH?" Karkat muttered and looked up with her. He tried to think of the last time he'd felt happy. It was hard to find a good memory: the closest he could really think of was a smug satisfaction after someone else's misfortune. "I'M JUST NOT A HAPPY PERSON."

":33 AC gives Karkitty a puzzled look. What do you mean not happy?"

"I JUST CAN'T THINK OF ANY SPECIFIC FUCKING THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY. IT JUST DOESN'T COME UP MUCH."

"Oh c'mon, there must be something."

"WELL, TELL ME SOME OF YOURS, MAYBE IT'LL GIVE ME IDEAS."

"Well..." Nepeta blushed, with the first thing to come to mind being something she didn't have the courage to bring up to him. "I like to be with furiends. And roleplaying... playing with Pounce... drawing..." Before she could continue, her Trollian alert played. She pulled the tablet computer out of her sylladex.

centaursTesticle began trolling arsenicCatnip

CT: D- Nepeta. Are you busy?

AC: :33 *ac pawses and wonders why you want to know*

AC: :33 I'm talking to Karkitty.

CT: D- I told you, I don't like you hanging out with that degenerate. But I'll leave that topic on the shelf for the moment. I would like your help with something I'm working on. Could you come by my hive?

AC: :33 *ac nods and says she'll be right there after she finishes her conversation.

CD: D- E%cellent. Thank you for the assistance.

AC: :33 ^_^

centaursTesticle ceased trolling arsenicCatnip.

She pulled away from her own conversation to see that Karkat was also typing to someone. Someone who's text was a different shade of purple.

"Karkitty, l have to go now, but can we hang out later?" She asked. Karkat glanced up at her, having not paid attention.

"HM?"

"Well... you like your movies right? That's something that makes you happy right?" Nepeta blushed slightly. "Maybe... they'd make you even more happy if you had someone to watch them with..."

"I DON'T HAVE TIME TO TAKE BREAKS AND WATCH FUCKING MOVIES. WE'VE GOT WORK TO DO. A MISSION. THIS GAME HAS A TIME LIMIT, EVEN IF WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS." Karkat stood up and turned his back to her. Nepeta looked crestfallen. "BUT... MAYBE AFTER THE GAME... IF WE GET THAT CHANCE... THAT'D BE NICE."

The two parted that day on that hill, Karkat continuing upwards, while Nepeta bounded excitedly down the mountain towards a return node. He'd said yes... kind of. But that was still a big step. She set her way towards the hive of her moirail, who, despite his issues with Karkat, she knew he would be happy for her, even if he was too stubborn to admit it.

She arrived several minutes later to the outside of Equius' hive, having used a series of the gates as shortcuts. The entrance had been left open. She wandered inside casually, expecting a greeting and a straight to the point explanation of what he needed help with.

There were signs of a struggle. Equius' work table was covered in mechanical and robot parts, including some mechanical legs he'd been building for Tavros at Aradia's request. Nuts, bolts and various tools were on the floor, as if they'd been swept away. The iron table was itself dented, like something had been slammed into it repeatedly. And there was a puddle of blue blood up against the wall. The head was missing from the body, but there was no doubt it was him. She was too stunned to do anything. Too stunned to read the blue-painted word on the wall a foot above Equius' corpse.

**HONK**.


	3. Chapter 3

"WHAT."

"Makara." Nepeta repeated sternly. "Where is he?"

"THE HELL IF I KNOW." Karkat told her. "HE'S LOOSE SOMEWHERE ON THIS METEOR. HAVEN'T SEEN HIM SINCE WE FIRST LEFT THE GREEN SUN."

"Green Sun?" Nepeta questioned.

"Okay, Okay, I gotta jump in here." Dave stepped between them. "Timeline confusion, this is gonna take a while if we don't do it right." He looked over at Nepeta. "OK... what's the last thing you did in your timeline before coming here?" Nepeta looked at him coldly and refused to answer. "Ok, you're not helping. Good to know."

"NEPETA, JUST WHAT THE FLYING FUCK IS GOING ON?" She hesitated for a moment.

"Gamzee... he went crazy. He killed... everyone." She seemed pained to say it.

"When did he go crazy? What was the last thing to happen before the killing started?" Dave inquired, looking for the point of divergence.

"We were all playing Sgrub..." Nepeta told him, sitting down on the floor with her back to the wall. "I was talking with Karkitty... and then I got a message from Equius..."

"WAS THAT THE DAY YOU WERE FOLLOWING ME AROUND ON LOPAH?" Nepeta nodded in reply. "SO IN YOUR TIMELINE, HE SOBERED UP EARLY AND RAMPAGED BEFORE THE GAME ENDED." Karkat contemplated.

"And he apparently got a higher body count in her universe." Dave added.

"You said he's here?" Nepeta questioned.

"SOMEWHERE." Karkat told her. "BUT IT'S HANDLED NOW. YOU DON'T HAVE TO KILL HIM." Nepeta gave him a perturbed look he'd never seen on her face before. "I MEAN... I'M HIS MOIRAIL NOW. I THINK I'VE GOT HIM UNDER CONTROL AND HE WON'T HURT ANYBODY AGAIN."

"Moirails?" Nepeta said placidly.

"YEAH. AS OF A FEW DAYS AGO." Nepeta brushed past Dave, and grabbed the front of Karkat's shirt with her mechanical arm, before pressing him up against the wall.

"Do you really wanna know how that ends up for you?" She said seriously, getting up close in his face. "Because maybe you'd change your mind about it."

"NEPETA, WHAT ARE YOU-" Karkat was interrupted as he was lifted an inch off his feet by his shirt.

"Makara is a killer, and he'll never stop being a killer. My timeline, this timeline... I don't give a furick!" She became angry. "HE HAS TO DIE!"

"Whoa! Calm down..." Dave grabbed Nepeta by the shoulder and tried to pull her off of Karkat, but quickly found himself in a good deal of pain. On reflex at the touch to her shoulder, she released the grip on Karkat and lashed out with her metal arm, claws extended. They caught Dave horizontally, across the neck. Dave let out a sound between a cry and a gurgle as red blood started dripping from three narrow wounds.

"NEPETA WHAT THE FUCK-"

"Shut up!" She turned back to him, her eyes watering. "I... I... if you knew what I'd seen... if you knew what it was like... you'd understand..." Her voice quivered. Dave knelt down on the floor, holding both hands to his throat, while red energy glowed from his hands. He was calm... even if this slit throat was a fatal wound, his god tier would certainly restore him, even if it sent him unconscious for a few minutes. To avoid that, he was trying to manipulate the fabric of time around him to revert his neck to it's pre-slashed state. Karkat was shaking a bit, shocked that the gentle and kind-hearted girl he had known was being so violent. It was more than just anger or grief. If he was one of the others, he'd make up some bullshit about being able to sense his aspect, but he figured anyone watching could see it in her eyes.

Bloodlust.

* * *

"So uh..." Dave sat at the table in the central lounge, rubbing his healed neck, with Karkat, Kanaya, Rose and Terezi around the table with him. "Judging from your reaction I'm gonna assume that wasn't normal for her."

"I Can Understand Her Feelings to an Extent." Kanaya reacted to being told the recollection of events by Karkat. Karkat, who had called this conference minutes after Nepeta had fled the room in tears and Dave had recovered himself, was slumped over the table, head below his shoulders. "If You Will Recall, I Desired To Eliminate Gamzee After His Rampage Myself, When You Stopped Me."

"Revenge is a powerful motivator." Rose commented. "I was in such a blind rage myself once, even if I don't remember it very well."

"BUT... HER GAMZEE ISN'T THE SAME AS OUR GAMZEE. WHY IS SHE SO DETERMINED TO KILL THIS ONE? THEY'RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE GIVEN ALL THE DIFFERENT THINGS THAT HAPPENED."

"I dunno man... two clowns go sober and go on two killing sprees. That's like being an asshole at 4 PM versus being an asshole at 9 PM. You're still an asshole."

"HE'S NOT AN ASSHOLE STRIDER, HE'S MENTALLY ILL. SINCE I'M THE ONLY ONE ON THIS ROCK WHO SEEMS TO BE IN FAVOR OF HELPING HIM INSTEAD OF KILLING HIM, SO IT'S NO WONDER WE HAVEN'T SEEN HIDE NOR HONK OF HIM ALL THIS TIME."

"K4RK4T, W3 SHOULD R34LLY F1ND N3P3T4 4ND B3 H4V1NG TH1S CONV3RS4T1ON W1TH H3R."

"I UH... DON'T THINK SHE'S IN THE MOOD TO TALK."

"That, and there is something we need to address amongst ourselves first." Rose shifted the topic. "Dave... this is your field. What are your thoughts? Is she Doomed?"

"Most likely." Dave replied.

"So in any case then, helping or hindering her vendetta with Gamzee, she's going to die one way or the other.

"WAIT WAIT WAIT... NOT NECESSARILY!" Karkat interrupted. "YEAH SHE'S FROM A DOOMED TIMELINE, BUT AREN'T WE CURRENTLY OUTSIDE OF ALL TIMELINES? DEPTHS OF PARADOX SPACE AND WHAT NOT? DOESN'T THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?"

"She's Doomed From The Perspective Of Our Personal Timelines, But Maybe Not From Paradox Space's Point of View. Is That What You're Saying?" Kanaya asked for clarification.

"MAYBE. I MEAN, THIS IS KINDA OUTSIDE THE ESTABLISHED RULES THAT WE KNOW OF."

"I dunno. Still seems kinda doomy to me. Especially if she's determined to go after Gamzee. There's being doomed, and then there's actively seeking someone who'll kill you."

"WELL MAYBE I CAN TALK HER OUT OF IT. CONVINCE HER IT'S UNDER CONTROL, AND THAT SHE DOESN'T NEED TO KILL HIM."

"Karkat, You Are Already Gamzee's Moirail, Are You Now Also Proposing You Auspistesize Between Gamzee And This Alternate Nepeta?"

"WELL, IF I HAVE TO..." Karkat muttered.

"W3 N33D TO F1ND OUT WH4T H4PP3N3D 1N H3R V3RS1ON OF TH3 T1M3L1N3 1F W3 W4NT TO F1ND A P34C3FULL SOLUT1ON TO TH1S."

"That sounds like a good place to start." Rose agreed. "Karkat, the next time she approaches you, try and find out what you can." Karkat nodded.

* * *

Nepeta watched this meeting from the vents. While this version of her hadn't spent time climbing through vents in the meteor, it hadn't taken her long to find out about them. So... only three of her friends were still alive now. That was more than the last timeline, but Makara still had plenty of blood on his hands as far as she was concerned. Even if he hadn't killed anyone in this one, she had still planned to end him. To make absolutely sure. That he would never hurt any one she cared about ever again.

**Honk**.

A distant sound echoed through the ducts, sending the hair on her neck straight up. A mixture of fear and adrenaline turned on inside her, as she headed through the duct work in the general direction of the sound.

Clown Hunting.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: So, as should be clear now, this story alternates between the past and future chapters. That's all I really wanted to say. Expect a lot of tragedy and feels in the past chapters, though I figured that would go without saying. Enjoy**.

* * *

Moments after a tragedy... but not many...

Nepeta knelt on the floor in shock before the mangled body of her beloved moirail. She was too stunned to contact anyone; too shocked to scream. There were tears. A great deal of them. How could this have happened? She had just talked to him... she was too distraught to check if the body was still warm. She was too distracted in grief to consider if his killer was still nearby.

"Nepeta! Nepeta!"

"She was shaken from her shock after an unknown length of minutes. The voice had come from inside her head, accompanied by a pulsing warmth from the circular stone hanging from a cord around her neck. She reached into her shirt and drew out the charm, a boon awarded by her sprite upon reaching the mid point of her echeladder. The spirograph on the white stone glowed with the same green tint as her own blood.

"P-Pounce?" She managed to utter. The stone glew more intensely as her sprite faded into existence before her.

Following her death in an inevitable and unfortunate cave in, her beloved Lusus and best friend had been merged with the kernel and brought into being as a game construct. Pouncesprite, now armed with a vocabulary, had been a great comfort to her over the session... she never tired of her roleplaying... she shared her affinity for ships and listened with attention. It was with her and her alone that she had been able to vocalize and discuss her true red ambition. Even in death, she was a determined and devoted guardian. She said nothing at first, merely embracing the crying troll in a hug with her front paws, the back two having been replaced with the tail of a sprite. As Nepeta cried into her shoulder, Pounce maneuvered them to put Nepeta's back to the body, averting her sight. There was silence for a few moments... but Pounce grew tense.

"Listen..." She whispered urgently in Nepeta's ear. "It's not safe..." Nepeta still wept, but for the first time made an attempt to stop. It failed. "We need to go someplace safe."

"But..." She glanced back at Equius' body. At this point in the session, the rules by which one might be revived via dream self had been established. However, it appeared the killer had made a point to take the head with them, making that impossible.

"You can't do anything for him now." Pounce urged her. "He would want you to be safe. I want you to be safe." Pounce's hug tightened. "So please... we have to..." Pounce's sentence was cut off by the sound of a circus horn. The honk reverberated around the primarily metal room as both she and Nepeta froze stiff. Pounce broke the hug and met Nepeta's eyes. "His second gate. It's the fastest way out. Hurry!" Pounce pushed Nepeta away towards stairs upwards and out of Equius' lab, before taking a defiant stance at the shadow that had appeared in the door way. She hissed at the glowing yellow eyes, bulging and enraged in appearance.

"LOOK WHAT THE MUTHAFUCKIN CAT DRAGGED IN?" A smile of all teeth replied. "a muthafucking cat and a muthafucking ghost cat." The troll in the shadows continued.

"HISSSSSSSSS" Pounce backed away from Gamzee, while glancing back at Nepeta, urging her to run.

"Pounce... I..."

"GO!" She yelled before leaping at Gamzee, only to be knocked out of the air mid pounce by a circular object thrown at her by the clown. Though horrified of what had just hit her, Pounce was glad Nepeta had not been there to see. She probably would have frozen up again."

"HONK HONK KITTY KITTY." The clown advanced. Pounce extended her claws. As a game-sprite, she was ordinary bound against interfering with other players. But at the same time she got a sense that none of those rules mattered anymore. The game was off the rails. There was only one thing on the cat lusus' mind... securing an escape for her daughter.

She ascended, bounding faster than she ever had in even her most intense hunts. Despite the terrifying sorts of wildlife on Alternia, she herself had never truly felt herself as prey. She tried to shut her recent memory from her mind. She was running. That was all that mattered. If she just focused on that... maybe she could live. All her energy put into flight, she hadn't even properly processed yet, that Gamzee, the calm and melancholic, had killed her moirail... and was not probably killing the ghost of her lusus. Can ghosts even be killed? She didn't think so. She didn't think about it much at all. Running. Running up endless steps, flights above, until Equius' second gate, which would take her to the home of his server player. The maid of time. Maybe she could fix this. That was her job, right? Go back and fix things when they go wrong. Things had gone wrong. They had gone so very, very, wrong. As she reached the second gate, there was blood curling screech from below... one she had heard before, when a cascade of rocks fell and slew her guardian. There was no time. She stepped through the gate.

On the other side, she found herself alone. No one around. A ruined hive, as it had been since the game began. Outside the windows of the hive, the crystal landscape was bathed in light from the purple aurora surrounding the Land of Quartz and Melody. She felt the sprite pendant around her neck pulse, as she pulled it out again. It was now cracked, and the crack was spreading.

"P-Pounce?" She tried to summon her guardian from the stone. The cracks were now encompassing most of the stone. "Are you there? Pounce?!" Nepeta pleaded... but after a brief moment, the stone crumbled in her hand, turning over the moments into a finer and finer grey dust, as it became clear that her lusus was now dead for the second and final time.


	5. Chapter 5

Karkat awoke next to an unfamiliar warmth. Not totally foreign... it reminded him of the warm sopor of his old recupercoon, unlike the awful "beds" the humans had alchemized for everyone. No, he realized, he was quite clearly in a bed. He was not alone in the bed.

"FUCK!" Karkat rolled off the bed in a panic, smacking into the cold metal floor. He used the bed to steady himself and stand up to see what had crawled into the bed in his sleep. He guessed there were two possibilities. Well, three, if Dave was pulling a shitty prank. It turned out to be his first guess. The curious, alternate timeline Nepeta who had surprised everyone the previous day. He was about to wake her up and make a fuss about it... but something stopped him.

It was her face. Nepeta... his Nepeta, from his timeline that is, had always smiled unless she was trying not to. It seemed to just be her natural state, and on the few occasions he had seen her sleep or nap, she had a massive smile on her face. But this one... her face was neutral... almost frowning. Whatever trauma brought her here had hit her even on a subconscious level. It made him just feel... sad.

Karkat sighed in resignation before sitting down on the bed, and reaching for his current book from the stack on his bedside table. He would just let her wake up on her own. He opened the book. He sat in silence for a few minutes at the side of the bed, until he noticed her stir. He noticed she wasn't waking, but shivering. He bookmarked his page again, before swinging his legs up onto the bed and back under the blanket, inching closer so that they could share body heat as they had in their sleep. While he had had months now to get used to sleeping in relative cold, she had no time to acclimate to it. He sat upright and kept reading, but his mind would not stay on the story. That the novel was a romance didn't help matters.

He had been aware of Nepeta's unrequited red feelings for him for about a sweep before Sgrub began. He hadn't understood at first. In those days, his self loathing was so deep that he had mistaken her hints for a mockery. Like it was all a setup to crush him later if he ever returned her feelings. After all, who could possibly have red feelings for a mutant, truculent jackass like Past-Karkat. Even he hated the guy. And so, he'd danced around the issue for the rest of the time they'd known each other. Towards the mid-point of the session, it finally became obvious to him that she was being sincere... and that made him feel more awful for treating her as if she wasn't. That Past-Karkat was a douche too. Even if he was the one who made the decision to at least have a talk with her about it once the Sgrub crisis was over and things calmed down. And of course, after everything unexpected that happened, things finally calmed down and she was II.

He had an extensive feelings jam on the matter with Kanaya a week or so after the boring road trip through the afterlife began, before she'd gotten so wrapped up spending time with her new matesprit. He was too stubborn to go to her... she found him, lying on the floor, dejected, beneath "the shipping wall". She had helped him pull himself together, but he still felt torn up inside about it. And he would have talked to his moirail about it... if he wasn't the one who killed her in the place.

Still tied up by his own thoughts, he gave up on the book and returned it to the table. He reached under the blanket to put a hand on her shoulder and stir her, he could tell at the touch that it was the shoulder of her metal arm. How did that happen? None of them had a chance to ask before she pulled her dissapearing act. He made a mental note to ask her later.

Nepeta's sleep was troubled, not from cold, but from a nightmare. She ran along the streets of Derse as her dreamself, surrounded by slaughtered black caprices, their blood used to paint that accursed word in red against the purple buildings. The honking never stopped. It came from all directions, as if projected via speakers in the buildings and the sky. Visions of dead bodies flashed before her eyes, killed by the clown or each other. She had only a vague sense of where she was coming from or where she was going. Just that she had to stay alive. Stay ahead of the clown.

When she eventually woke up, she felt a comforting warmth and heard a gentle snore. Karkat had clearly been awake, as he was now asleep sitting up, right next to her. Though she was now awake, she made no movement for fear of disturbing him, and merely enjoyed the closeness. She tried not to recall the ultimate fate of her timeline's version of Karkat.

But horrible memories are difficult to avoid.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Posting straight from my tablet which has horrible spell check, so this will be touched up later. But here we go. The big one.**

* * *

It was the day after Pouncesprite's demise. She had kept moving, in fear of pursuit by the clown. She tried to reach anyone... they were either not answering because they were away from their computers... or they were dead. And as the hours past, she became more and more certain of the latter. But there was one person who she got a reply from. She made for his hive, dreading that she would have to convey the bad news in person. She arrived about half an hour before the dangerous break of day (much like Alternia, LOPAH was host to dangerously hot and bright light during the daytime), entering Karkat's hive through one of the landing slats rather than the door. She gingerly crawled through the window frame.

":33 Karkitty?" She called out quietly into his room. She sensed movement to her left and quickly rolled away from the source. The source in question, a shaking Karkat, how had his sickle raised over his head with both hands, ready to strike had the intruder proved unfriendly. Unfortunately, he was so paniced that he'd swung on reflex anyway.

"NEPETA HOLY SHIT." Karkat breathed relief. "SEND ME A MESSAGE BEFORE YOU CRAWL IN THE WINDOW. I'D PREFER NOT TO CONVERT MY PANTS INTO A LOAD GAPER." Karkat was silenced as Nepeta hugged him.

"They're dead." She sobbed. "Everyone's dead..." Karkat put his arms around her shoulders.

"I KNOW. I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON." Karkat told her. "I'VE NEVER SEEN GAMZEE ACT LIKE THIS BEFORE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO."

"He never seemed dangerous before." Nepeta sat down on the floor next to Karkat, who followed suit. "Didn't seem the type who fureak out without a moirail..." Karkat looked down at his floor dejected.

"THIS IS MY FAULT." He muttered. Nepeta looked at him with annoyance.

"You're not gonna get started about that "curse" again are mew?"

"NO NOT THE FUCKING CURSE." Karkat snapped back. "I MUST BE AN EVEN WORSE MOIRAIL THAN I AM A FRIEND."

"I didn't know you were pale for Gamzee..." Nepeta muttered with surprise.

"NOT OFFICALLY OK, SO DON'T GO PAINT IT ON YOUR WALL OR ANY BULLSHIT. I JUST... WORRIED ABOUT HIM A LOT. HE LIVES ALL ALONE, HIS LUSUS NEVER TAUGHT HIM RIGHT, AND HE WAS CONSTANTLY STONED OFF OF SOPOR SLIME. CAN YOU BELIEVE HE ACTUALLY ATE THE SOPOR SLIME EVERYDAY?" Karkat explained. "SO LATELY I'D BEEN TRYING TO GET HIM TO START TAKING BETTER CARE OF HIMSELF." He put his head in his hands. "I CONVINCED HIM TO STOP EATING THE SLIME. AND THEN THIS HAPPENED." There was a moment of silence between them.

":33 Equius told me once... that the reason Gamzee upset him so much was because he didn't act right." Nepeta told him. "He said someone with blood that high should be violent and angry, but never was. I thought he was just too stuck in his ways about the castes, but maybe he was right..." Talking about her dead moirail was making her teary eyed. Karkat did not notice this or else he might have stayed his tounge.

"I CAN UNDERSTAND GAMZEE TAKING SOME OF THEM BY SURPRISE, BUT I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW HE COULD HAVE KILLED THAT GROSS SWEATY FREAK. HE WAS SUPER STRONG, SO HE SHOULD HAVE FOUGHT BACK AND STOPPED HIM. HE WAS SO STUCK UP ABOUT THE SPECTRUM THOUGH HE PROBABLY JUST STOOD THERE AND LET HIM KILL HIM. MAYBE EVEN GOT OFF ON IT..." Karkat was interrupted by a punch to the face from the girl, who's sorrow had swung to rage from his words. She was back on her feet and yelling at him.

"Don't you talk about him like that!" She snarled. "That wasn't what happened! He would never do that!" Karkat was doubled over, clutching his nose. "He was pig-headed and stubborn and awkward..." She admitted. "But he was caring and helpful and actually really nice, even if he didn't want people to know!" Karkat had gotten to his knees, still clutching his nose.

"I'M SORRY!" Karkat shouted with a muffle, his face still covered. "IT WAS A SHITTY THING TO SAY AND I SHOULD HAVE KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT." Karkat stood up, and despite his best efforts to keep it covered, he was bleeding from his nose, bright red blood seeping through his fingers. Nepeta froze.

":33 Karkitty... are you ok?" She said with concern. "I didn't mean to hit you that hard..."

"I'M FINE." Karkat turned away from her and fled into his bathroom, closing the door behind him. Nepeta leaned against the door as she heard running water from inside.

":33 Your blood... it's..."

"YEAH I KNOW."

":33 I... guess this explains why mew've always been grey..." There was a silence.

"I KNOW, I'M A FREAK. NOT LIKE IT MAKES A FUCKING DIFFERENCE NOW." The water stopped.

"Why did you hide it from us?"

"BECAUSE I'D BE FUCKING CULLED LIKE THE FUCKING MUTANT I AM."

"But once we were in the game, you could have. You'd have been safe."

"I... JUST DIDN'T WANT ANYONE TO KNOW, OK?"

"Did you think... we'd treat you differently?" Nepeta looked down. "We're not that shallow..." She stopped and pondered for a moment. "Well, OK, maybe some of us..." Another moment of silence. She felt Karkat's body press up against the other side of the door, his back to it as her's was.

"YOU REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT MY BLOOD, DO YOU?"

":33 It doesn't make any diffurence in who mew are." Nepeta told him. "Mew may act all angry and make a show about not caring but... it's only skin deep. Mew treat it like a secret... like your even trying to keep it from yourself... but I can tell. You really do care about everyone." She took a deep breath. "And once I figured that down... I finally understood why I was so red for you..."

There was an agonizing silence she could barely stand. "Damn it Nepeta," she chastised herself as she backed away from the door. "It took it took the near complete end of the world for you to tell him what you feel. What the hell made you feel like that was good timing?"

"WAS?" The silence was finally broken by a muffled world through the door.

"What?"

"WAS OR AM?" It took just an extra moment for her the register the question, and then another to answer.

"Am." The door opened and Karkat rushed out and embraced her, red tears flowing from his eyes.

"THANK YOU..." He quavered. "THANK YOU, SO MUCH... I..." Nepeta wrapped her arms back around him. Despite the situation, despite everything that had happened, his lifelong fears of loneliness, rejection, and worthlessness, were now being challenged and he felt overcome with happiness.

"I love you." They said to each other, before sharing their first kiss.

And their last.

"well isn't that muthafuckin cute? :o)" Rang a menacing voice from the window, as both of them nearly bit their tounges in surprise.

"GONNA GIVE ME MUTHAFUCKING DIABETES SO SWEET AND SACHRINNE! all the red and green is like... LIKE MUTHAFUCKING TWELVE PERIGEES EVE UP IN HERE!"

"GAMZEE!" Karkat shouted as both of them backed away from the window, where the gangly figure of the highblood stood silouheted against the rising sun.

"so i'm just chillin, saw the sun was coming up, thought i'd come visit my best bro... HAVE A MUTHAFUCKING VISIT AND SUCH AND JAM ABOUT SOME THINGS... and what do i find... MY BRO GETTING ALL ROSY WITH ONE OF THE FUCKING PEASANTBLOODS!" Nepeta pulled on her claw gloves in preparation for the fight she was sure was imminent.

"GAMZEE, LISTEN. I NEED YOU TO CALM THE FUCK DOWN. PLEASE." Karkat pleaded with him.

"and i also get a nice surprise to learn what you really are, my brother..." Gamzee continued. "NICE SURPRISE TO LEARN WHAT YOU MUTHAFUCKING ARE!"

"GAMZEE, I..."

"no... you helped me learn who i really am... WHO I WAS MUTHAFUCKING MEANT TO BE... and i really wanted to let you live and just be muthafuckin bros for life..." Gamzee began to shake as he drew one of his juggling clubs from thin air with a flash of multi-colored light. "WITH YOUR BLOOD THAT'S RED LIKE ROSES... and my nightmare just discloses... THE TRUTH UNDER MY NOSE IS..." He pointed the club at Karkat and Nepeta. "we are higher than you. AND SO YOU HAVE TO FUCKING DIE!"

* * *

"Rogue: Awaken."

When next she awoke, Nepeta found herself on Derse. And everything was very, very wrong. To the right of her dream bed, she saw the corpse of a black caprician, impaled on a black regisword. She recognized him as Jack Noir, the dersian double agent who Karkat had met and begun to hatch a plan with. She tried to sit up, but felt a great deal of pain, and realized that the left arm of her dreamself was completely gone. However, someone had also bandaged it up.

"Rogue, you live only through one of the final acts in the life of the Knight." Spoke a voice. It belonged to a tall, slender black caprician who sat in a chair in a darkened corner. "Regretably, I was only barely in time to save this life as well. My double crossing agent was ready to take your life as soon as your soul arrived here, as he had with the others. I regret I could not prevent the wound to your new body." The ringless Black Queen arose from her seat and walked over to the window of her dream room. Nepeta found herself choked for breath, unable to speak as she comprehended the queen's words.

The final acts of the Knight...

"The wrath of the bard now threatens both kingdoms. And through duplicity we have lost the means with which to smite him." The queen stared out the window, where flames could be seen in the distant of the purple cityscape. "As we speak, my droll retrieves an inheritance, left to you by the Heir." Nepeta heard the words, but did not listen to them.

The final acts of the Knight... no...

The black queen stood by her bedside and leaned over her.

"Your heart is broken but your body is not. The Bard may yet be stopped, if you so will it. But only if you make the right choice." Nepeta didn't respond to her verbally, but returned a cold look to her.

Minutes later, the Courtyard Droll entered the room, carrying metal object wrapped in cloth, which the Queen painfully attached to her left shoulder as Nepeta said nothing. After a few minutes, she found herself in control of her replacement limb. Equius' handiwork. Once in the game and able to easily duplicate items with alchemy, he had taken the time to prepare "replacement parts" for everyone, just in case. She had thought it a little macabe at the time, but now released just how genuine the concern was. He had even made modifications for specific people, in her case, a greater flexibility and lighter metal for her agility, along with built in claws. As she got used to the new limb, the Black Queen spoke again.

"Rogue, for the sake of both Derse and Prospit, I have a quest for you." She handed her a map. "Seek out thy denizen, Yaladaboth. Face the choice. And then, seek the Highblood and MAKE. HIM. PAY."


End file.
